You would think that a national company like Omantel would strive to have the best customer service out there. Sadly, this is not so. It is now a month of many visits to the Muscat City Center branch and countless calls since I’m trying to get them to simply send a technician to my home to get ADSL set up. Their “service number” at 1300 is a joke. All they do is put you on hold or give you another number where you can talk to another incompetent person who will give you even more excuses. The worst is when they give you false expectations like saying “this week” knowing full well that it’s not going to happen. This morning, for example, I called 1300 and they told me to call 24242424. The person on this line then told me to call 24634304 and round and round we go! The word for the day, boys and girls, is “incompetence“!
My apologies for not getting back to many of the readers’ comments and emails I’ve received. Until Omantel gets their act together (I will not hold my breath!), this blog is basically on standby. Their customer service is an absolute disgrace to the Sultanate.
Andy in Oman 
Hey Andy, this is not the first time I hear about a similar experience from Omantel. Email me what problem you’re experiencing and I’d be glad to help you troubleshoot.
Thanks for your offer of help. It’s appreciated. Thank God it was sorted out! 🙂
They installed landline n wifi router yesterday 14.11.2013 , aftr installation the guy said there is signal problem ans shall be solved in 2 days. My landline is working. However no internet. Can anyone please help me. Because i visited omantel branch and they say we and registered a complaint and it shall resolve soon.
Hi i see you have helped Andy. I have the exact problem with Omantel. There is no decent help at all The connection keeps dropping from 7pm to 10pm or sometimes at random times.Its been half a year I have been suffering from this. I have a D-link-2750U.
I totally agree. I was going to blog on the very same thing! Isigned up for OmanTel’s broadband in February. A month ago (May) they put in a phone line. I explained I needed broadband too. They knew nothing. I went into the shop. They said there was always a ten day gap. When that expired I went again. A technician rang and told me I was lying. He was outside the house (wrong house?). I rang customer service who claimed I had only asked for a telephone and I would have to apply again from scratch. I have a piece of paper in size 24 font saying Application for Phone and Broadband – all beautifully signed and stamped just as they like it!
The service from NAWRAS technically is not as good (I understand) but their customer service is outstanding (by Middle East standards!). I was connected in less than 24 hours of applying. They come out and change the modem. The trouble is it that the connection is not as good as Omantel.
mum,
Sorry to hear about your horrible experience. I was seriously considering getting the Nawras modem if they didn’t solve the problem about visiting the main building.
2 and a half months and counting for me…
That’s terrible. Have you tried visiting the main building in Mawaleh?
They are bad, but are they as bad as Dhofar Automotive, aka Zubair? Particularly the service department. It may be that their customer service people are all trained by the same person.
Haha! As bad your Dhofar Automotive experiences are, I’m sure they’re nothing compared to my Toyota Mawaleh experiences. 😉
I agree with, I’m an Omani and they do the same thing as us
Yousuf,
It’s good to hear that they offer racial equality when it comes to overall bad customer experience! 😉
In 1986 when I lived there all the sevices were slow then but you could speed things up with a 20 rial bribe. I wonder if that is still true or has it gone up to 50 rials. If seems the Brits were best at this. They budjet for baksheesh.
Ken,
I’ve heard that this was “the way it used to be” and I’m so glad to hear that such bribery attempts are more often than not punished rather than rewarded! 🙂
I have a similar problem, or should I say problems! Our company line has not been working for the past THREE MONTHS!!! yes!! can you believe it? have called them numerous times, their technician has been here a few times, but still no result.
Typical excuses, we need the “pair number”, oh the technician will come to visit you, its not our fault, its the airport company’s fault (our office is located at the airport)…etc dah dah dah!!!
Don’t know what to do?? who to go to???
@Mehdi You should call the Business Helpline and request The account manager to get in touch. Every Business connection should have an allocated account manager. When I needed some service,albeit after a few persistent calls, my account manager did get in touch with me!
Medhdi,
I feel for you. I hope it gets sorted out soon!
File a new complaint every 2 days till your problems solved and at the same time send email to complaint also. Once a technician came down and could not even fix my problem, instead after a while later i received a sms saying that “Dear customer, your problem had been resolved”.
Anon,
I received several similar phonecalls in which the caller seemed to be under the delusion that my problems were solved (when nothing had been done at the time). I think it goes back to lack of communication between departments.
My colleague had been suffering this agony for over 3 months. Yeah fully agree, Omantel’s customer service is totally miserable and they send a bunch of incompetent people who don’t understand the root of the trouble to attend to the problems, and they end up making mess and aggravating the problem further, where the internet, stops working altogether.
God bless all those who are trapped in such unfortunate circumstances.
Nikhilstephen is trying to play a God-man here. Probably he doesn’t understand the problem from the sufferer’s view point. Good to send such impracticable advises. I don’t believe you made numerous persistent calls stretching over 3 or 4 months Nikhil.
Just trying to help as much as I can. I empathise your situation. Also, I was one of those sufferers, except I got my problems fixed.
Nikhil has often been a great help to others in trying to solve problems on this blog. Don’t misunderstand what he’s saying there anon. “Playing a God-man” is not exactly his intention, I think, haha!
You have to have some wasta or at least pretend you do. I had been waiting for 4 months before I played my trump card and they fixed it all within 3 days. Absolutely pathetic and a real embarrassment to Oman.
“or at least pretend you do”. Right! 😉
Soso, what was your trump card, if you don’t mind telling me? I am out of ideas, having wasted untold hours on phone calls and visits to the local retail outlet of Omantel.
I Totally agree with this statement as they are the worst telecom company i have ever seen. they have the worst broadband that is so slow that you can travel the world and come back to your video and it is still buffering what a joke. Secondly sometime especially in weekends the internet gets absolutely ridiculous i dont know what kind of fiber optic is this? is it made of stone?. Thirdly in the gaming sense the connection is so slow and unbearable that is considered as a joke. Lets face it Omantel is the worst telecom company to date.
Anonymous,
Omantel is far from the worst broadband out there. It is quite fast which is why people keep waiting for them to install because once they do, YIPPEE!! They simply have to work on the problems with installation. One of the main problems is that the installation technicians are sub-contractors and do not work for Omantel. I really hope they will do something to get broadband into peoples’ homes quicker.
Lets all Face the truth that Omantel is the worst telecom company to date let me clarify:
1. Their Customer service is a joke they put you in hold till you die or choke to death they dont basically care about the customer needs also when they finally take your call they will give you the stupidest solutions ever to date.
2. Their so called fast broadband is a joke simply it is so slow i dont know what kind of fiber optic is this ? is it made of dirt? and please dont even access the internet while in the weekend, ill give you an example go and open a 20 minute long video in the weekends then go travel around the world after you return home it will still buffer.
3. The gaming in this so called telecom company cant be explained because if you play one game online with this internet i guarantee you that you will throw the gaming console out of the window.
Anon,
I’d have to agree with most of your points except for the speed of Omantel.
1. Yes, customer service is definitely something they need to work on. They are aware of that though and the week I went to the Headquarters, they were in the middle of “Customer Care Week” in which they were seeking to improve this obvious problem.
2. Omantel is far from slow. Now that I’m connected to 2mps broadband, I can easily watch youtube videos straight through and rarely (with HD ones) do I have to pause it for a second or two to ensure the video is downloaded. I can even upload a 1GB video in a matter of 4 to 5 hours which is pretty darn good!
3. I’m sure you’re right about gaming. You’d need some pretty fast broadband for that.
A company my friend worked for was responsible for supplying the Omantel offices with coffee. When ever their internet would have troubles they’d threaten to cut off the coffee supplies until a technician came and fixed their issue. Worked wonders. If only we could all be so lucky.
I am stuck on buy as you go.
InshaAllah someone comes to you soon.
Princess,
Thanks for the funny coffee story. I shared that with the gentleman helping me out at the main building. 🙂 It’s so good to be connected once again!
I totally agree that Omantel is the worst experience that most of us have to go though when ADSL or slimier are required. .
I requested the line in April 2011 then I had it after 3 months.I made more than 25 visits to Al Bahja Omantel office.
I went through all above mentioned stories and even much more.
The biggest joke was when I received my bill for three old months when I did not have even a fixed line!!
I still remember the expressions for the faces for Omantel employs when they were trying to use their computers for what they call it SYSTEM!?!?!
Sam,
If it’s such a nightmare to get ADSL in Muscat, the capital, I can only imagine how much more horrible of an experience it must be in Bahla. Plus, you have those Bahla jinns to deal with on top of it all, right?! 😉 When in doubt, blame the jinns!
Yet again Omantel falters. OMG, this company is a real joke.
I switched over my Blackberry local service to International as I was leaving for my overseas trip. My first day overseas, the service was working fine, the 2nd day, my emails stopped working, only BBM was working, tried all sorts or things, reset the device, power cycled, took took the battery off, resent servicebooks…etc, nothing helped. the entire trip for 4 days (besides the 1st day) it did not work. SMSed my representative from overseas a couple of times, of course he never bother to reply, I called him as soon as I arrived today, he said “sometimes the BB service gets stuck when traveling to different countries, and it quits working!” I was shocked to my bones!
He told me (as usual) he will get back to me, but I should call the Customer service number to file a service ticket.
I called the customer service line, guess what they told me?! The way they had setup my BB service when they were changing it to International was incorrect, they added the BES instead of the BIS+ service! can you believe that? that’s why the emails were not working and it says service blocked. I asked him if he can rectify my problem, he told me his in-charge was not around so I have to call after 15 minute!! LOL!!! I burst out laughing when he said that. I asked him, can you at least file a service ticket for me as my account manager has asked me to do so. He tells me, he can not do that until his supervisor comes back from his break and checks this issue. And again he asked me to call him back after 15 minutes!!
Guys… what is going on??????? what is happening to this company???
Any comments?? Anybody??
Medhi,
Sounds like a HORRIBLE experience. I feel your pain!
Hi Andy, I am experiencing the problem you have. It’s been 2 months and counting and I keep on calling their call center but they keep on telling me the same thing that is “I already send a report to the technical team and we will contact you soon. I’ve even went to their branches but same thing, they make a report and will contact me asap. It’s very frustrating and I always get pissed when they keep answering me like that. So, would you mind if I ask how did your problem sorted?
Cheers.
Manny, the reason my problem was sorted was due to one man: Adil al Riyami who works in the main building in the billing department. He continually worked on my problem until it was finally sorted!
After reading above stories, I am waiting and counting days. 8 days completed.
Guys be sure there is no customer service at omantel just work deadly their CEO talking about 465 millions rials projects!!! and their services are totally dead…I suggest to the government to shift this company to the moon to do better services over there with Elian’s.
My wifi network is not working. So Pls come n clear the connection today.
HI friends
I applied for an omantel ADSL connection on 1st of September 2014. The guy at the omantel counter at Al Burj Lulu assured me it would be done within few days. I waited for one week. Nothing happened nobody called me or enquired. I returned to the counter. Now another staff at the counter very impolitely announced that it will take a maximum of 2 weeks. I agreed and went home quietly. Again nothing was happening. In between I called four times to 1234 and 1300. They responded that they can only hear the matter and CANNOT DO ANYTHING to help me as it was just call centre. (So what’s the purpose of call centres?) However they advised me to go to the counter again. So I decided to visit the counter again. This time another staff (different from the first two staff) told me it would be done on the next day . I left the counter a bit relieved. But next day I came to know that was a big lie. Nothing happened. Nobody came to give connection. Frustrated I went another Omantel Office (in al khoudh) two days after. Again the response was the same. However the staff obliged to register a complaint. She tried to contact some number for 5 minutes but no one was answering at the other end. Today is the 18th day since I have given the application. Still no one has contacted me or asked me about the location or any matter related to this application. Friends do you have any clue what would be happening? Now I start believing very strongly that there is NOT A COMPANY CALLED OMANTEL in Oman.
Hi , I am facing same issue here , now 15days completed and no response from Omantel . I visited their offices , called them more then 50times , but still nobody came . Now don’t know what to do.
it happens with me as well when i call call center they put me on hold then they will transfer to another agent their work is done .when i visited their offices they tell your complain is logged with in one week technician will come .its been more than 3 months now nobody come when we ask for refund that also we r not getting .my land fhone no for wifi 24264371.still nobody contacted .now i m fed up i dont know what is happening with omantel………………………………………
They are still the same !
every month there is disturbances in adsl when complain is not registered in 1st attempt we need to call again to register and lastly again call to know the status the reply will come that they will send the technician after 24 hrs of complaint registered. shame on the service if the call is made wednesday night then only sunday technician will come after so many calls also…..
I wonder why the problem occur every month and need to suffer minimum 4-5 days monthly and bill should be paid fully.
I made a complaint on Wednesday and now its Sunday, no response from Omantel. When I call customer care, they just response we are following up, but no commitment when will the issue gets fixed. Very poor service. Shame on Omantel.
I was applied for new broadband connection on 11th Aug 2017 till today 4 times they called and said address verification and no one is telling when they are going to establish the new connection. i have called several time to customer support i.e 1300 but no one committing the installation dates. now i understand and prefered Ooreedoo is for better than Omantel.
Agreed
Omatel worst service
the worst service in Oman
in 2022, they are same.